Rating: 3.5/5
Spoiler Alert! This is a genuine warning about spoilers - I will be revealing the plot of the book in this review.
It is also a warning that reading a book about the apocalypse in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic is f***ing weird.
First off, I want to sing the praises of Blind Date With A Book. My friend sent me one in the post for my birthday because she knows I love books but wasn't sure what to pick for me. So she set me up on a blind date instead and we are both crazy impressed. The service is super easy for a start, and it's so fun to not know what book you're getting! On top of that...it was a genuinely great book. It was exactly the kind of thing I love, and whilst I had my doubts about the quality of books they would send out, I'm really pleased with the book I got: Angelfall.
It's a fairly old book at this point, first published in 2012, and is the first in the series Penryn and the End of Days. The series is a post-apocalyptic fantasy. Set in San Francisco, the world has been torn apart by angels, only small pockets of humanity exist in a lawless world where angels continue to roam as if the world is already theirs.
I found Angelfall to be a very fast paced book, dropping us straight into the action as Penryn attempts to move her family from their home to somewhere safer. In many ways, the pacing actually felt as if it was written with a film in mind. I don't mention this as a particularly good or bad thing, though it can help with picturing events in your mind (I approached it a bit like The Hunger Games films - similar end-of-the-world vibes).
By opening in medias res, Angelfall pulls you straight in. You have no choice but to get behind Penryn - after all, she's trying to protect her family. I read a massive chunk of this book in one sitting because I was so engaged by Penryn's adventure. Maybe her teaming up with an angel was an obvious story, but everything around their budding romance was so genuinely interesting that you kind of forget the main plot is a massive cliche.
Surprisingly, Angelfall had a lot of horror and sci-fi vibes as it went on. It's definitely more graphic than I thought it would be for YA - if you don't like gore there are probably short sections you'd be inclined to skip. And then the ending turns quite sci-fi as we turn to the traditional 'breeding things in test-tubes' setting for what I suppose could be considered the final battle.
There are several tropes that appear in this book, but I rarely felt they were used badly. Some might not have added much to the story, but they certainly never took away. As an avid fanfiction reader (or at least, I used to be), there are definitely some scenes that could be taken straight out of a fanfiction - including the age-old sleeping next to each other for warmth - but, again, they never really took you out of the story.
The only section that could counter this is probably the ending. The concluding quarter of the book is definitely the weakest part for me. The pace is kept up, and I definitely still want Penrun to make it, I haven't lost any of my interest in or appreciation of her throughout the story, but the idea of angels destroying the Earth and then hanging around with beautiful human women in a nightclub setting just didn't sit right with me. Sure they were experimenting on humans and I guess it was a way to lure them in, but I think some more exposition could have been used in this section. The angels didn't know why they were on Earth according to Josiah, so what were they up to in the labs? Why was Raphael held responsible for Nephilim? How is a nightclub helping Uriel gain power?
I definitely have some theories, but I guess I'll have to read the rest of the series to find out?
One massive point of confusion I need clearing up though: HOW BIG ARE ANGEL WINGS? I was picturing massive things - angels might be light but their wings are in proportion to their bodies surely? And yet Penryn and Raffe carried them everywhere. Raffe was able to hide in the back of a car with them on his back, could hide them under his jacket even! I'm just not sure how this works and it someone would like to explain I'd be very grateful.
Despite getting through Angelfall so quickly, I only rated it a 3.5/5 because the ending frustrated me. There wasn't as much explanation for the angel's motives or set up as I would have liked, I don't love that Penryn found Paige alive to tell the truth (sorry but some loss is necessary in post-apocalyptic books!), and I really like that we know Raffe is still alive. That last one is possibly controversial but come on, who doesn't love a good cliffhanger?
My local library isn't open at the moment, but I think I'll be looking to pick up the next two books in the series some time this year. I've certainly got plenty of time in isolation to read them!